Saoirse

With each milestone, the Irish-born DJ, producer, trUst label boss and Body Movements festival founder flexes her creative muscle further – through it all, remaining passionate about music discovery, building inclusive community, and adding new dimensions to her artistry.

Saoirse’s allegiance to the electronic was forged in her home country of Ireland, where from beginnings in inner-city Dublin housing and trailing after her mother to free parties, she cultivated her obsession with the sounds of Leftfield, Prodigy and Orbital. The Irish artist cut her path with an enduringly DIY, by-the-bootstraps spirit – defying genre snobbery, scene misogyny, and small town mentalities as she went. As a teenager, her days were spent on local pirate radio and hustling for sets in Ireland’s hard house and trance spaces. Slowly, she made money from any jobs she could find, eventually working in Abbey Discs, one of Ireland’s most renowned dance music record stores, and doing seasonal work in Ibiza. From this she began building a globe-trotting vinyl collection that formed an alternative education, and her tastes expanded into new realms of house and techno.

An epiphanic moment on the dance floor of fabric during a Villalobos set inspired her to relocate and pursue things seriously. She secured a job at Resident Advisor age 23, where the music industry landscape unfurled. Quickly, Saoirse moved from hometown support slots to playing London’s most hallowed venues and nights – Phonox, fabric, FOLD, Adonis, Chapter 10 – and frequenting countries across Europe, the US and Asia, from Berlin to Bali and the Balearics, and festivals like Sonar, Horst, Love International and Strawberry Fields.

“I like to take risks,” she says, “and respond to the crowd – I want to move really fluidly from what’s wacky, ravey, headsy. Maybe an all-nighter will start on tech house and finish in the depths of liquid bass, or jungle and jazz.” A Saoirse DJ set is revenant in research yet unbridled by rules. Using her cavernous bag of records, she oscillates from sweaty dark room chuggers to bubbling bass and garage, euphoric and elastic house to tunes made for soundtracking sunset festival sets. She is a longterm resident of Barcelona’s famed queer party Maricas, and maintains her own party, trUst, where she has brought in and played alongside artists including Spekki Webbu, Nicolas Lutz and Eris Drew. Earlier in 2023, she curated a night at fabric with frequent collaborator Shanti Celeste.

Radio, too, has been a defining space to experiment and grow: at RINSE, she was the first house-focused resident show and became known for championing respected legends and emerging guests from DJ DEEON to Aurora Halal. Her rallying Resident Advisor mix, Radio 1 Residency and Essential Mix carved out more ambitious, frenetic soundscapes that would become elemental references for the wider scene.

Her label trUst Recordings highlights Saoirse’s core ethos – emphasising trust with her creative collaborators, and tracks that get people heads down. “A club tool comes naturally to me when producing,” Saoirse says. Two EPs, trUst 001 and Two Bruised Egos, are the natural progression from DJ to producer, articulating the frissons of the rave with rich textures and experimental vocal samples. Saoirse now steps up with a fabric presents compilation – a pivotal, incredibly personal achievement. It elevates the experience of her amorphous DJ sets, exploring all corners of the electronic realm that she knows and loves. “I want it to feel timeless, so I leaned into the textures I know from within those club walls,” Saoirse says. “This is where music truly influenced my life, where I learned to be a good raver and where the longevity of the dance floor hit home.”

Two decades into her amorphous career, Saoirse’s dance floors are only ever-expanding.